It’s Not The Colonoscopy I’m Worried About
It’s everything leading up to the colonoscopy.
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I’ve been quiet lately (or at least, as quiet as I can be) because I have a colonoscopy scheduled for Friday and it’s pretty much all I can think about.
It’s not the colonoscopy per se that has me worried. I know I won’t remember it, and I’ll be just another faceless butthole in a facility full of buttholes.
I actually love to be knocked out. Sedation should be a ride at Disneyland. There’s nothing like that rush of warmth right before you’re hit in the head with a velvet bowling ball.
Approximately 10 seconds later, you wake up with a can of juice in your hand and you’re thinking about pancakes.
One time when I was out, I remember having the most vivid dream about eating a steak. It was the steak to end all steaks. It was the Babe Ruth of steaks.
I’m not wild about the IV, which I’ve read could be made a lot less painful with a tiny prick of Lidocaine. But no. That would just be one more thing to prep, and one more thing to bill for, and it would probably cost $500.
So, never mind. I’ll just lay here with a needle the size of a soda straw jabbed into the back of my hand. No, really. It’s fine. I’m fine.
I also don’t like how one minute you’re laying there joking around with a nurse, and then, completely without warning, the actual doctor and 10 other minions swarm into the room like fire ants excited about eating a gazelle. And you’re the gazelle.
Dave Barry has of course written the colonoscopy tale to end (no pun intended) all colonoscopy tales. He finally agreed to be plumbed after his brother was diagnosed with cancer after his colonoscopy.
I’ve finally broken down at the age of 55 after another mysterious bout of abdominal pain. It was only the second time in seven years, so it’s not exactly persistent, I have no other symptoms, my gallbladder is sketchy, and a barium CT (mmm, yummy — liquid chalk on ice) after the first episode was negative for all the usual suspects.
